Friday, August 22, 2008

Island Peckers

As has previously been noted, I'm a huge fan of woodpeckers. Sadly we don't get to see them often. We have no resident species here (YB-Sapsucker is an occasional migrant/vagrant in theory at least) but a number of other islands do.

This is the West Indian Woodpecker, Cayman form. I found one nesting by my accomodation to my surprise but it wasn't wonderfully friendly to my puny digicam's zoom (travelling on business = no multi-kilo camera rigs, underwater, telephoto or otherwise). At the local botanic gardens there were loads however. This chap was very accomodating.

He even brought a friend.

I'm intrigued by how square the hole is. I wonder if this is normal or have they had artificial help?